Microsoft adds an OpenSSH client to Windows 10

Ask just about any *NIX admin using a Windows laptop and they will have come across Putty. For years, Apple MacBooks have been the go-to choice for many admins partly because getting to a ssh shell is so easy. The newly re-invigorated Microsoft is changing how easy it is to interface with Linux (and other *NIX flavors) significantly with features like Ubuntu on Windows. There is a new beta feature in Windows 10 that may just see the retirement of Putty from many users: an OpenSSH client and OpenSSH server application for Windows.

One of the nicer things about PuTTY and KiTTY (improved version of PuTTY) is the terminal emulator they come with. While a native SSH client may be handy in Windows, it will depend on how far cmd.exe has come as a terminal.

What’s the copy/paste setup using the mouse like these days? Can it be maximised to take up the entire screen? Does it support a customisable scrollback buffer, or is it still limited to 100-odd lines? What’s the colour support like? Are there tabs or split-screen support? Etc …

Note: I haven’t used cmd.exe in Windows 10 yet. I know there’s been some improvements, but I don’t know it’s a match for the PuTTY terminal.

Mouse selection just works. Right-click with no selection pastes, Right-click on a selection copies. Pretty standard.

Can it be maximised to take up the entire screen?

alt-enter does a psuedo full-screen – no title bar or border, no taskbar, but it still displays a scrollbar (i.e. its not a real text mode full screen, its still a standard window)

Does it support a customisable scrollback buffer, or is it still limited to 100-odd lines?

The screen buffer goes up to 9999 now. The history buffer goes up to 999 as well, and you can extend that by adding 999 additional history buffers (at the cost of memory usage? not sure why it works like this)

Maybe that is next? If they added tabs and the ability to hotkey it as a overlay I’d be 100% happy with it to be honest, but I don’t live in it so something like Console or ConEmu might still suite more demanding users better.

Also, this might be helpful if your interested (full breakdown of all the newish key combos and whatnot):

Scrollbar? Of course you always have a vertical scrollbar in a terminal (and no horizontal)? Can you dynamically resize the window with dynamic line wrap? Is there a right click context menu option for “open url under cursor in browser”? Is there a quake like shell mode? (I use the scroll lock key to open a quake like shell.)

All was mentioned before and all of this are the minimum feature set of a terminal for me.

Scrollbar? Of course you always have a vertical scrollbar in a terminal (and no horizontal)? [/q]

Its not that it HAS a scrollbar that bothers me, its that it is really big, ugly, grey and distracting. I like the way it works on OSX better – it only bothers showing it when you actually move the mouse or perform a scroll with the keyboard shortcuts (i.e. the scrollbar is only there when it is relevant). And it is an overlay instead of eating into the window and pushing the contents in – that solves all kinds of problems with layout and line wrap popping in when you reach the scroll limit. Not everyone likes this behavior but I am a huge fan – it just looks way nicer.

Can you dynamically resize the window with dynamic line wrap?

It does rewrap any wrapped lines when you resize if that is what you mean…

Is there a right click context menu option for “open url under cursor in browser”?

no.

Is there a quake like shell mode? (I use the scroll lock key to open a quake like shell.)

That is what I meant about a system hotkey for it in my previous comment. I want that. Bad. Im spoiled for it coming from my terminal setup on OSX.

[q]All was mentioned before and all of this are the minimum feature set of a terminal for me.

Its not there yet, but its getting there. For now there is always Console or ConEmu if you want a custom terminal. Both of them do most of this stuff, there are just overly complicated imo. Im lazy and just want a few more tweaks and Ill be happy.

If cmd.exe doesn’t float your boat, you can always try PowerShell. It’s more powerful (built in scripting via cmdlets, and supports pipes) and pretty much anything you’d want to run in cmd.exe runs in it, including ssh.

Also, for those who read the article and followed the installation instructions only to find typing “ssh” doesn’t work right away, you have to reboot Windows to complete the installation. Yep, some things never change.

Maybe, but simply logging out and back in didnâ€™t work. It could be because itâ€™s a beta feature and I donâ€™t run the insider version; when I rebooted it gave me messages about installing updates that looked a lot like when I was testing insider builds on another machine a while back. Maybe for insider builds it doesnâ€™t require any low level changes to enable the feature because the support structure is already there.

The bigger question is whether or not Microsoft has implemented a proper PsuedoTTY (pty) device. The Console Device used for cmd.exe, COMMAAND.COM, and PowerShell isn’t a proper PTY device, and thus a lot of the tools, etc available on Linux, Mac, and other UNIXes devices are simply not possible.

KDE ported most of their stuff over; but Konsole can’t b/c of the lack of a PTY device. Same goes for Xterm, GNOME Terminal, etc.

What matters here is proper ANSI color code support, not how you change the color theme. I (and most sensible admins) don’t care about how you change the color scheme as long as it’s possible, with the caveat that it has to work with the ANSI escape codes programs from anything except windows use.

Last I checked, there technically is ANSI terminal emulation support, but it’s mediocre at best.

Also, slightly OT, but bash is not in any way responsible for the color scheme on Linux, either the kernel (if you’re using a regular virtual terminal) or the terminal emulator (if you’re using a terminal window in a graphical environment) is.

Nice idea, but only supports AES-CTR and chacha20 ciphers and supports a tiny subset of keys and KEXs, but, on the other hand, a decent set of MACs.

It also says that it doesn’t use the OpenSSL library. That’s the really big news, here.

I understand leaving out arcfour/RC4 and IDEA, but why wouldn’t MSFT include Blowfish, Twofish, CAST, and 3DES? At least they chose the CTR versions of these ciphers. (Blowfish isn’t compromised in any practical way, by the way). I prefer faster and less memory- and CPU-intensive ciphers.

Still, it’s a good start. The SSH server is compelling enough to check out especially since I just started using X2GO for remote desktop access which requires an SSH server for its file sharing feature.